Europe

At Estonia’s Amari Airbase, a Danish F-16 fighter jet takes off from a newly renovated NATO standard base. Waiting to take off is a Soviet era AN-2 biplane, one of two fixed wing aircraft in Estonia’s fledgling air force. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

A Danish F-16 in a new hangar at Amari. Four Danish F-16s are training out of Amari, part of a program that has cycled American and British pilots and planes through Estonia’s main air base. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

Lt. Col. Rauno Sirk, commander of Estonia’s Amari Airbase, welcomes NATO pilots to the base, which has gone through $100 million in construction, since Russian troops left in 1994. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

At Almari, barracks in rented containers hosted American troops in May. They are kept ready for new NATO troops that will arrive later this year. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

A container barrack for women at Almari. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

Symbolizing the millenial military confrontation between East and West in Estonia, a Swedish-built fortress stares across the Narva River at a Russian-built fortress in Ivangorod, Russia. (Vera Undritz)

Brian J. Diebold, commander of the US Navy destroyer, USS Oscar Austin, at the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

U.S. Marines present the colors at the Fourth of July party in a tent on the lawn of the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Tallinn, Estonia. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

Lt. Col. Kyle A Reed, leader of a company of U.S. Airborne troops, was one of dozens of uniformed American soldiers mingling with Estonians at a Fourth of July party in Tallinn. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

At Tallinn’s new Seaplane Harbor Maritime Museum, Estonia teaches a new generation of Estonians about their 20th century history of defense. (Vera Undritz/VOA)

At the Maritime Museum, Estonia’s flag flies off the bow of the freshly restored icebreaker Suur Tõll. During its century in existence, this German-made boat has passed through the hands of Czars, Soviets, and Estonian nationalists. (Vera Undritz/VOA)